Most people working on big media productions (movies, shows, games) get a fixed price or salary for doing so. The owners / publishers (maybe also big stars in movies which already are millionaires) get all of the rest when a production sells good.

So by buying / paying for subscription services you only support big c-suite assholes which sit on the rights to media which they have contributed nothing to, except for capital maybe. I won't pay some intransparent big corporation to be able to watch a 10 year old movie / show just to make those people richer.

Piracy is not immoral, but if it's too widespread it can destroy opportunities for people creating things to get paid for creating things, and so they may not be able to continue doing so. And that just makes the world worse.

Try to find a way to support the people that make stuff that you love. For example I won't pirate music from small bands, I only pirate games if they have onerous DRM or something (never indie games), and I'll only pirate books if they're ridiculously overpriced and I can't get a standalone DRM free version.

Just cos you're a pirate doesn't mean you can't have morals.

FACTUAL

Access to culture itself if you think about it

This is basically why I do it. I can’t afford streaming services, especially since you need multiple these days. I used to just use Netflix back when it was a good option. It was cheap and good enough to be worth it.

If I didn’t pirate it, I wouldn’t be able to consume it at all at this point, it’s that simple.

But despite my own self being in poverty, most of the people I know are not, so by talking to them about the media I watched free, and getting them to consume it as well, it increases the chances of the company profiting anyway. Just not off me.

These companies think they are losing out on money due to piracy, but they aren’t. They just assume we’d all pay for it if we didn’t have a choice. They don’t seem to realize sometimes it’s about not being able to pay, not just not wanting to pay. There’s no additional money to be had from a lot of us.

I just listened to the Pirate Bay episode of Darknet Diaries, and I had never considered this. I couldn’t agree more.

I'm still pro piracy lmao

Reddit just became a circlejerk of iTs ALlwaYs MoRaLLy CoRRect so I'm really hoping that doesn't happen here.

I still like to know why people pirate.

Honestly it's also back to being a price thing for me.... Shit's out of control, "sales" are $30 for a 5 year old game.

It seems like since the pandemic everyone and everything is raising prices and somehow they all have a reason, yet my pay stays the same...

You can't purchase digital media. All you're allowed to purchase is a revokable license to consume it under some corporation's terms.

This is true.

Piracy exists as a functional alternative to corporate distribution. We are it's competitors and they should be required to innovate around making content easy to access.

When Digital Content is impractical to access; it is over-engineered and it deserves to rot on the vine

They dont think it be moral, but it do.

At least in the EU there are plenty of alternatives. Big book retailers often have an ebook download shop as well as publishers running their own ebook stores. Google Play books, iBooks and others are also around, although much smaller than Amazon. Ironically it's mostly the indie authors that are only on Amazon because they made it "easy".

Barnes and Noble in the US sells eBooks in epub format on their website

Forget effectiveness, the little guys rarely screw you over for their own greed.

Actually you can. Kobo for example has a great selection of ebooks. Those books will still be drm protected tho.